[TriLUG] WTB linux laptop

Sat Mar 22 22:22:50 EDT 2008

I mostly love my Dell.  I got a smaller HD so I could go to 7200RPM on
it and I am definitely more pleased with this laptop more so than
either my old Apple iBook or the ThinkPad before it.  Wish I could
have gotten a smaller one, but no biggie.  I didn't buy through the
UNC deal because the UNC deal did not yet exist.  I think Kevin Otte
was looking at the UNC deal though.  I don't know if he purchased.

I doubt anything at UNC/state government surplus would fit your
hardware bill, but you might check out there for something you could
potentially add RAM or a new HD to.

A little off topic, but while discussing UNC, Dell and Ubuntu, it's
worth noting that on a Windows/Lenovo run campus, Dell, with COSI's
help, has scored a bit of a coup with an Ubuntu machine going on
display in student stores.  If anybody still questions Dell's
sincerity about the whole Ubuntu thing, I certainly have not gotten
that impression from the higher education rep at UNC. :)

On Sat, Mar 22, 2008 at 3:44 PM, Tom Roche <Tom_Roche at pobox.com> wrote:
>
>  summary: I wanna get a laptop (probably also a second, as backup) for
>  school/development use. If you've got one you wanna sell, or you
>  would care to recommend one, please lemme know either via this list or
>  directly.
>
>  details:
>
>  I lost my ThinkPad last week. I did the police report, but am pretty
>  sure it's not coming back :-( OTOH I'd been meaning to put a linux on
>  it (I got it to be my backup laptop when I was working at a place that
>  only supported win32, but I only used open software, more below) so
>  now I don't need to to that :-)
>
>  I need to get a replacement pretty quickly (preferably this week), and
>  possibly 2 (it'd be nice to have backup hardware).  I'd like to get a
>  laptop with {linux preinstalled, hardware working under linux}, and
>  used equipment is fine with me. I'm currently trawling through
>  linux-laptop.net, but would appreciate advice.  Basically I'm looking
>  for a box (or 2) to get me through grad school, during which I'll
>  probably be doing a lotta modeling (e.g.  land use, atmospheric
>  chemistry), software development, and paper-writing.
>
>  My TP had a 2 GHz CPU, 1 GB RAM, 100 GB 5400 rpm disk, and 14" screen
>  running 1280x768. I'm looking for something similar, but could
>  probably sacrifice some graphics resolution (1024x768 should be fine
>  with a real window manager) and CPU speed since I don't game or watch
>  DVDs on the box (or at least didn't do that on the TP).
>
>  hardware support desired:
>
>  * wireless networking. My TP could use a variety of consumer-grade
>    802.11b/g routers as well as the public networking @ UNC, Duke,
>    Weaver Street Market, et al. I want to retain that capability now,
>    and I'll want to use the authenticated networking @ UNC once I start
>    grad school in the fall.
>
>  * audio. I didn't play much music via my TP, but I played a lotta
>    spoken-word streams. (When available I usually download via USB to a
>    cheap MP3 player, but there's still a lotta content that's only
>    available via Real Audio et al.) Must minimally be able to connect
>    to externally-powered speakers.
>
>  * print. My TP connected wirelessly to my housemate's HP Photosmart
>    C7280, and I'd like to continue to do that if possible. (Worst case
>    scenario I could probably samba to a shared drive on his PC and
>    print that way, though.) I also have an ancient HP Laserjet 4P to
>    which the TP could print via USB/parallel cable.
>
>  * backup. Alas my current backups are 3 months old :-( mostly because
>    life has been hectic recently, backups from the TP to DVD were
>    pretty slow, and I am a moron. I got an external HD which connects
>    via USB, but I'd also like a box that backed up to DVD more quickly.
>
>  * camera. I have a Canon Powershot A620 which of course comes with a
>    lotta win32 software, but I mostly just connected it to the TP via
>    USB and copied files that way.
>
>  software support desired: I was using mostly open apps on the TP,
>  notably development tools (apache, emacs java, mysql, perl, python)
>  via Cygwin plus Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, Dia, and GIMP, so
>  I'm assuming that'll be no problem.
>
>  If you've got a laptop to sell, or advice regarding what to buy or
>  where, please lemme know, either via this list or directly.
>
>  TIA, Tom Roche <Tom_Roche at pobox.com>

-- 
Douglas A. Whitfield

UNC SILS, May 2008
Co-Founder Carolina Open Source Initiative
http://www.ibiblio.org/cosi
cell: 919-360-0306